


Chill In The Air

by AthenaStarsnow



Series: Sarrak One Shots [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Holidays, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27793087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AthenaStarsnow/pseuds/AthenaStarsnow
Summary: Arierra and Vette lead the Alliance's inner circle in a team-building exercise on Odessen.
Relationships: Female Sith Warrior/Vette
Series: Sarrak One Shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671394
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: November High Council Bounty





	Chill In The Air

The icy wind whipped past Arierra, stinging her face. She would’ve pulled up her hood again, but the wind kept pushing it back down, and she’d long ago given up that fight. She looked over to Theron, who was pulling his jacket tighter around him. He let out a long breath, his eyes following the white puff of air rose up and into the air as it was shredded by another cold breeze.

Arierra turned to Lana, who was staring at her with a look of fierce determination, standing stoic. She wasn’t going to show any signs of weakness, but she also wasn’t one to sit and waste time.

“Commander, I don’t understand. Why did you ask us to have our weekly update out here?” 

Hylo Visz, their resident Mirialan hotshot pilot and purveyor of less-than-legal goods, crossed her arm and nodded in silent agreement.

“So when I ask for outdoor meetings in the spring, you shoot me down,” Koth complained. “But you drag us out here to freeze our butts off?” As a native Zakullan, Koth had always been used to a certain level of comfort, even while on the run. Much of the poor, rundown areas of Zakuul were far richer than the rest of the galaxy’s standards. Koth made a show of shuddering.

Odessen was a temperate forest planet, much like Alderaan, with a variation of seasons that kept it from being too boring. The winter season had arrived, and it had brought copious amounts of snow.

“We’re missing a few faces,” Senya commented. Lana had been trying too hard to look like she wasn’t bothered by the cold. Senya truly didn’t care.

Koth mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like _I_ _wish Senya was missing_ , but nobody acknowledged him.

“Bey’wan is on leave with personal business.”

“Where’s that girlfriend of yours?” Koth asked. 

“Vette is busy,” Arierra said, trying to sound natural as possible. She’d arranged them in a half circle in a large open field of snow, facing the forest edge. Nobody would suspect that the small blue Twi'lek girl was creeping up behind them, snowballs at the ready, while she gave her speech. Vette held a snowball in each gloved hand, and her lekku curled around two more. She was wearing the warm festive wool lekku-stockings Arierra had bought her before their first trip to Hoth together, decorated in deep red with white mynock and snowflake shapes.

Arierra cleared her throat and made sure all eyes were on her.

“First off, I want to say that I’m really proud of you all. You’ve worked so hard to get this Alliance going as smoothly as it is. We’ve had tough times, suffered losses, but we’re still here. Still fighting. Our efforts will pay off, and Arcann will fall. I believe the Force is with us, but I also believe we will triumph through our own efforts. 

It’s been a long hard road, getting here. We’ve all put in the work. We’re all tired. And I know we could use some time to relax and enjoy ourselves. Life Day is only a month away, and I don’t see any decorations around headquarters. Everyone is so somber all the time. I didn’t get much time to celebrate when I was younger. I didn’t have much of a family. But you all. You’re my family now.”

A flurry of snowballs came flying towards the backs of Odessen’s inner circle. 

Lana was the first to turn around, drawing her lightsaber and slicing through a snowball with a blur of crimson light. “What in the world!?”

Senya leaped high, twisting in an elegant but unnecessary twirl through the air to dodge the snowy assault, and landed lightly on her feet. Hylo, Theron, and Koth weren’t as lucky.

“Sneak attack!” Vette shouted. She had a manic grin on her face as she winked at Arierra. Ari winked back, and reached out and lifted her arm. With the motion she brought up a large mound of snow and compacted it into a makeshift barricade. Vette used the surprise of her attack to dash in between her bewildered friends, diving at the last second to dodge a snowball thrown by Senya. She slid on her belly across the slick snow, past the snow fort wall, and barreled right into Arierra, taking her out at the legs.

Arierra fell on top of Vette and they rolled around, neither in a hurry to untangle themselves. They finally got up to their feet and Vette gave Ari a quick kiss. 

“Nice fort, babe,” Vette commented as they ducked back down to avoid snowballs.

They peered back up to see the rest of them scattering like womp rats. Lana and Senya created their own barriers, and the battlefield was set: a rough triangle of three snow forts.

“A war on two fronts,” Ari mused. “This ought to be interesting.”

Lana and Theron were together in the second snow fort, with Koth, Senya, and Hylo in the third.

“Oh boy… I hope Hylo can keep the peace between those two,” Vette remarked as she scooped up snow, packing them into messy round balls, bending over to make use of her lekku. The snow wasn’t quite ideal for packing, and the thick gloves made forming snow into balls difficult, but she was making do.

“I bet Theron and Lana are happy to be holed up together,” Ari said, waggling her eyebrows for effect as Vette handed her a few snowballs.

“Wait, what?” Vette threw a snowball that went way too high in the air. “Are they dating?”

Ari shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I’ve seen Theron staring at Lana’s ass sometimes.”

“Ari. Please. _You_ stare at Lana’s ass sometimes.” 

“I do not!” Ari protested. She picked up a handful of loose snow and flung it lazily towards Vette.

“I stare. Everyone stares. Lana’s got a great ass.”

“You’ve got a point. I concede this victory to you.” Ari grinned as Vette shoved snow in her face.

Ari let out a shriek of laughter and Theron called over.

“Ladies, I don’t think you’re supposed to fight each other!” He lobbed a large, very precise snowball and Ari ducked just in time before it hit her.

“You’re guys aren’t doing what I think you are, are you?” Hylo yelled.

“Eww! Hylo, no! We’re not animals!” Ari yelled back.

“Oooohhhh yeah! Throw that snow! Throw it hard!” Vette moaned as loud as she could.

“Quiet, you. You’re just reinforcing her dirty imagination.”

“What, you don’t like the sounds I was making?” She gave Ari a devilish smile.

“Of course I do. But perhaps it’s not the right time for that.”

“I say it’s exactly the right time. All is fair in love and war. Well, we’re in love, and we’re fighting a war. The most important war of our lives!”

Ari mulled it over for a moment and then nodded.

“Your reasoning is sound.”

“As always.” She moaned again, and Ari tried her best not to burst out laughing. With unsteady concentration, she pulled on the Force to roll up a massive amount of snow into three large balls, stacking one on top of the other to create a vaguely humanoid appearance. She stretched out two long cylinders of snow and raised them up carefully, mushing them firmly against the back of the snowman’s head.

Vette paused her distraction tactics to admire Ari’s creation.

“Wow! It’s a snow-Twi'lek!” 

“Watch this!” Ari pushed on the Force, and the snow-Twi'lek moved forward at high speed, sending it barreling towards Senya’s fort. Suddenly it jerked to the right, snaking a path behind them and exploded in a shower of snow.

“That was certainly a creative use of the Force,” Vette chuckled.

“If we win this fight, I’ll promise to show you something much more creative than that later tonight.”

Vette saluted. “Yes, ma’am!”

Vette reached down to grab more snow and huffed in indignation as the snow crumbled beneath her grip.

As ferociously as a rancor, she ripped off her thick gloves and tossed them aside, flexing her fingers that were now free of their warm bantha-hair laced prison.

She reached down to grab more snow and found a much better grip. She got to making as many snowballs as she could, pushing past the quickly building numbness in her fingers and palms. Her Twi'lek physiology, evolved to suit their hot homeworld of Ryloth, was a little more sensitive to the cold than most species.

Ari had forgone throwing the snowballs with her hands, instead opting to shoot them forward at lightning speed with the Force. She tried to be fair about her targets, shooting at both forts an equal amount of times. 

Lana and Theron weren’t playing fair. They sensed weakness, and dived in for the kill. They diverted all their snowy artillery onto the Hylo-Koth-Senya front.

Soon enough the snow fort cracked and fell apart under the constant assault of high velocity snowballs. Ari and Vette jumped in the air to cheer but their victory was short-lived. As soon as they exposed themselves they were overwhelmed with a massive wave of snow.

Their fort was utterly destroyed. Ari and Vette climbed out of the snow pile to see an interesting sight. Lana gave Theron a peck on the cheek and his face turned a deep scarlet. 

“That was certainly quite the team building exercise,” Lana remarked as they all joined back up in the middle.

Vette brushed snow out of Ari’s hair. “We figured you guys could use some fun. Especially you, Theron. You never stop working.”

He shook his head, unable to drop the big goofy grin from his face. “Yeah, I definitely needed that. Thank you. And you’re right, Commander. We work together, some of us for longer than others, but we’re more than that. We’re friends. Family. It’s good to be reminded of that every once in a while.” He not-so-subtly took Lana’s hand in his.

Ari mirrored him, taking off her gloves and shoving them into her coat pockets, and moved to take Vette’s hand in hers. She instantly recoiled.

“Your hands are so cold!”

“Yeah, I had to trade warmth for flexibility. But we didn’t even win.”

“Even so, I appreciate your brave sacrifice,” Ari said, grabbing hold of Vette’s right hand. Ari led Vette’s hand to her lips and kissed her lightly on the fingertips. “How about I help you get them warmed back up?”

Ari laced her fingers around Vette’s, bracing for the cold, lending her small amount of body heat to balance out the temperature difference.

Arierra turned to the rest of the circle. “Okay, enough of the snow. I’m sure we’re all freezing. Let’s get back in. I already have the droids setting up hot cocoa inside.”

Vette perked up at the mention of cocoa. “That’s the hot drink made out of water and chocolate?”

“Water? Oh please don’t tell me you drink it with water. Milk is obviously the superior choice,” Senya said.

“Milk? No no no. How could you drink that?” Hylo laid a hand on Vette’s shoulder and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Honey, what you need in your cocoa is half and half.”

“Half… of what?” Vette asked.

“Ok so it _does_ actually contain some milk. But the other half is cream. It makes the best cocoa this side of the galaxy.”

“Ooohhh yeah! Let’s do that!” Vette was bouncing up and down on her heels in anticipation. She bolted forward, trudging through the snow, yanking Ari forwards.

Once inside, hot cocoa with all sorts of festive toppings were offered by serving droids. Vette was quiet, too intensely focused on sipping her warm chocolate drink to say much. She still hadn’t let go of Ari’s hand, and she shivered as she finished her second mug of cocoa.

“Still cold?”

Vette nodded slowly as she swallowed, savoring the taste of the chocolate.

Ari leaned in close and whispered into Vette’s ear cone.

“I’m pretty cold too. Luckily, I know a way we can both warm up rather quickly.”

Vette set her mug down and grinned. She spoke up and gave the most convincing excuse anyone had ever heard as she pretended to look at her holo.

“This was fun, but it looks like we have to go. There is important Alliance business to take care of. It can’t wait, and it’ll probably take all night to sort out. So, see ya!”

Vette stood up quickly and Ari was right behind her.

“Have fun you two!” Lana said with a sly grin.

Vette led Ari back to their room, holding her hand the whole way. They stripped down and snuggled up, and Vette kissed Ari sweetly. It evolved into something harder, more desperate and full of need. Ari pulled backwards, breaking their liplock and smiled.

“I know we do this all the time, but can I say something, first?”

Vette nodded eagerly.

“I had such a fun time with you today. I love goofing off with you. A goofy snowball fight was just what we needed.

For the longest time, I couldn’t trust anyone. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, like we were today. Pulled in two opposite directions. Unsure of the differences between right and wrong.

I’ve been used and I’ve been betrayed. I’ve suffered losses and I’ve been lost. I’ve lost faith in a cause that I devoted my whole life to. 

I’ve nearly lost my life on too many occasions. 

But it’s all dwarfed in comparison to what I’ve found.

From the moment we met, I knew something was different. And the longer I’ve known you, the more it’s been confirmed over and over. You’re someone I can trust. Fully, utterly, completely trust, with all of my heart. You are the most genuine person I know. And with you, I can be my most genuine self. Slowly but surely you brought me out of my shell, out of my hiding place, to show me I could have fun again. To be dumb and goofy and enjoy all the little things in life. To show me love is all those little things. To show me that love is worth the risk.

You love me for who I am, the pretty and ugly, and the dark and light. I’ve shown you it all and yet you still love me. It’s hard to believe sometimes. But if I ever start to doubt, all I have to do is reach out and you’ll take my hand.”

Vette did so as Ari spoke oh so quietly. Her voice was lovely and low, and these sweet words sent shivers down Vette’s spine.

Ari continued. “When you first took my hand in yours, I knew everything was going to be alright. I was with someone who loves me. I feel that same way every single time we hold hands. Our fingers interlock, perfectly made for each other. I feel so safe. So warm. So assured. Everything is going to be alright. And holding your hand now, all I see is you. All I feel is the warmth you bring. All I hear is your breath. You mean the galaxy to me. I —”

It was wonderful, and so very lovely, but Vette couldn’t stand it anymore, and interrupted Ari with a deep kiss.

“Wish I could be so eloquent,” Vette panted in between kisses. “I love you.” 

Ari wiggled her fingers in between Vette’s and kissed their clasped hands, small little kisses that trailed up her arm and made their way to her neck. 

“I love you more than the galaxy itself. Now it’s time to make good on today’s promise.”


End file.
